Wiktionary talk:About Chinese/Wenzhounese

Montgomery Romanization
Is it appropriate to add this romanization? It was intended for Wenzhounese over 100 years ago. Since then Wenzhounese has changed quite a lot, including several mergers of initials and finals. Mteechan (talk) 17:15, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
 * That's what I was thinking. It's unlike the situation with POJ, where the Xiamen (Amoy) dialect hasn't changed as much (AFAIK only the j-l merger). — justin(r)leung { (t...) 17:33, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Okay, I removed the Montgomery romanization and added the system created by Shen and Shen in its place. It might be useful to have the Montgomery system somewhere for historical reference later though.-Prisencolin (talk) 06:06, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Provisional WT romanization draft
I tried making one based on the Shanghainese version since it seemed like little progress was being made. Maybe it will spur discussion. —suzukaze (t・c) 05:57, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
 * It looks good overall. Looks like the sandhi table was based on 溫州話? Some of the cells should not have glottal stop. Wyang (talk) 07:49, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The sandhi table sounds weird to me. Although I speak different variety of Wenzhounese, but I can definitely tell that it is not consistent with what I heard from urban Wenzhounese. For example, 先生 is pronounced with tone 33+33 (actually I prefer describe it as 44+44) in my accent, and 32+11 in urban Wenzhounese, but definitely not 11+33 according to the sandhi table. Mteechan (talk) 09:30, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
 * What about 先天, 先锋? Are they also 32+11? 11+33 is from 《温州方言词典》, which may be a different urban accent, but it could also be that the 生 is treated as toneless, and 先 is brought back to its original tone as a result. Wyang (talk) 09:41, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I asked a friend about the tone of 工商. He said it is 32+11. Mteechan (talk) 14:26, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The sandhi table was based on 温州方言词典. I was a bit unsure about the quality of, but I assumed it to be the same 陰上 . About 1+1A, both 温州方言词典 and 温州方言志 say it's 11+33, even for 先生. I'm not sure why that's starkly different from what Mteechan is hearing. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 14:35, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
 * 1B+1A is 11+33 though, i.e. 平安. But 1A+1A is definitely not 11+33. I'm guessing 温州方言词典 is based on a relatively old pronunciation or the author merges some combinations. Mteechan (talk) 15:16, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

That that's unfortunate... Maybe one of the other books have more updated tone sandhi information?--Prisencolin (talk) 15:19, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The latest publication on Wenzhou tone sandhi I can find is 浙江温州方言的四声八调类型及连调、轻声和语法变调 by Zhengzhang (2014) in Fangyan, but the description is essentially the same as his 温州方言志 (2008). — justin(r)leung { (t...) 02:01, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I assume Zhengzhang just quote from 温州方言志. Anyway I've made my own sandhi table. I will post it on my user page later. Mteechan (talk) 07:00, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

My proposal for Wenzhounese Romanization
This romanization is based on minidict romanization with some tweaks to make it better fit the phonology of Wenzhounese, and also make the spelling shorter and more regular. The first rows are minidict romanizations for comparison.

Initials:

Finals:

All finals originally begin with  'v is basically  'v + final. All finals begin with i (except i/iae) can only occur after initials ending in j, thus can be merged into corresponding finals without the i-. It's worth noting that there is almost no glide between initials ending in j and the finals (except iae). For example, 金 cjan (minidict: cian) is pronounced [tɕɐŋ], unlike in many other Chinese dialect, where palatalized consonant is usually followed by a glide. Final ae only occur after initials  '  h gh.

Any opinions? Mteechan (talk) 13:09, 24 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Thank you. I added additional rows to compare it with the current version on About Chinese/Wenzhounese and the romanisation system of Shanghainese, if you don't mind. I support leaving out those -i- rhymes. For initials, should we try to align it to Pinyin and Shanghainese? Our Shanghainese system is largely an adaptation of Pinyin to the Shanghainese phonology, except when there is a clash, e.g.  in our system is reserved for /z/ (not present in Mandarin) and /ts/ is represented by . The rationale for aligning the romanisation with Pinyin was that conceivably most editors and users of our Shanghainese content are likely to be familiar with Pinyin already, thus may find it more natural to use  than  for /tɕ/, etc. I don't have a strong opinion on  vs ,  vs , vs , but it would be good if we could use the same for all Wu varieties, whichever notation it is. Wyang (talk) 13:45, 4 February 2018 (UTC)


 * I think it'd be good to stick with the conventions used in Shanghainese so that it's consistent across Wu dialects. The problem I have with the current Shanghainese convention is the slight inconsistency of using j and q for tɕ and tɕʰ, but using X and Xh for the other aspiration pairs... — justin(r)leung { (t...) 21:59, 4 February 2018 (UTC)


 * True, although this seems very tempting, judging from ... Wyang (talk) 23:18, 4 February 2018 (UTC)